Tau could not give peace to Aren’s soul by killing men in their sleep. No, he had to make it into the Ihashe. He had to win this match. He wanted revenge, needed revenge, and there was no price he wouldn’t pay to get it. So Tau channeled Jabari at his teasing best. The Governor thought he knew taunts, but no one could make you lose your head like Jabari could.
“I’ll tell my family,” Tau said to the Governor. “I’ll tell them I lost to a half-breed slough-skin whose real father, his hedena father, must have taken his mother in the dirt, on a raid.”
“Nceku!” said the Governor, coming fast for Tau.
Tau tried to fend him off but lost another point. He was down too many and worried there wasn’t enough time. He had to work faster.
“Did your mother like it, you think?” Tau said, disgusted with himself, his behavior, and his plan. “Rutting with a savage in the muck? How can the man who calls himself your father look at that marked-up face and not know you come from heretic stock?”
“You debased Low Common cek!” The Governor battered at Tau’s sword and shield.
Tau did his best to defend, gave up another point, and lowered his shield and sword to cover the bottom half of his chest and waist. The Governor was in a fervor, and though Tau was taking a beating, he wanted to hurt him more.
“Yes, yes!” squealed Tau, doing his best, that time, to imitate his childhood bully Chibuzo, who had been three cycles older. “Give it to me! Put a pock-faced hedena in me!” Chibuzo, the bully, had made it into the Southern Ihashe Isikolo. Chibuzo had died there, in training.
The Governor screamed and swung wildly. It was the swing Tau had been waiting for. He stepped closer, avoiding the heaviest part of it, sent a prayer to the Goddess, and took the blow on the side of the head.
The world exploded in a dazzle of multicolored light. Then Tau was on the ground. His helm had come off and it rolled in lazy circles beside him. Dazed and expecting another attack, he raised his sword, but the attack didn’t come.
“No! No!” the Governor said, pleading. “I didn’t mean—”
“The match is over,” the Proven told him. “We have a winner, by disqualification.”
“You can’t! He’s not deserving! You can’t—”
“What you can’t do is strike an opponent in the head,” the Proven told him. “The winner is five thousand forty.”
Tau had won. He was still in the contest and needed to prepare for his next match. He tried to stand. The world turned green and his eyes crossed. He squeezed them shut and forced his way up. He could do this. He would do this.
He stepped out of the fighting circle, his head feeling altogether too large, as the sights and sounds of combat swirled round him. He heard bronze clanging on bronze, shouts, screams, and points being called as the young Lessers of the South battled for the chance to become killers.
The Governor was still arguing with the Proven who had judged their match. He had to be carried out of the fighting circle by two full-blood Ihashe. Tau felt no satisfaction. The Governor was right. Tau hadn’t deserved the win.
In the nearest circle, a massive man, one of the biggest Lessers Tau had ever seen, was crushing his opponent, who quickly called for the Goddess’s mercy. On Tau’s other side, the match was more even. Two warriors hacked at each other like stonecutters. The fighting was all strength and bluster, no technique. Tau couldn’t tell who would win, but at least the world no longer looked bright green.
“Five thousand forty!” a new Proven called out. The man was standing two fighting circles away and calling Tau’s number. “Five thousand forty and five thousand three hundred ten!”
It was time to fight.
Tau walked over, swinging his sword and twisting his neck back and forth to loosen it. His opponent arrived at the circle as he did, and Tau tried to look like he wasn’t on the cusp of throwing up. The Low Common across from Tau had a bulbous nose, wore several heavy shirts in place of a gambeson, and was barefoot. He nodded to Tau and Tau returned the gesture. They stepped in the ring and raised their swords.
“Goddess smile upon you,” said the Low Common.
“Fight!” the Proven said.
Tau’s opponent lurched into a looping attack. Tau blocked. His sword was inside the Low Common’s blade and Tau lifted up and away, moving the man’s weapon out of position, leaving him unable to defend as Tau brought his sword down on the Low Common’s shoulder. The man cried out and darted back, but not before Tau swung again, smashing his blade into the Common’s upper arm.
He yelped and dropped his sword, and Tau stabbed him in the gut. He doubled over, fell to the ground, and curled into a ball. Tau stepped back, waiting for the Proven to call the match.
“He has a twelve count,” the Proven warned, encouraging Tau to batter the downed man.
Tau didn’t move and the Low Common wheezed his way to his knees before crawling for his sword.
“He gets to his feet and the match continues to two hundred,” the Proven said.
“Then it does,” Tau said.
The Low Common got to his sword, put a hand round its hilt, and looked up at Tau. He must have seen something. He stayed in the dirt.
“The winner is five thousand forty,” shouted the Proven.
The Low Common took his hand from the sword’s hilt, watching Tau, shame writ large across his broad face. Ihagu or Drudge were his only options now, Tau knew, but he felt too empty to offer sympathy, so he left the circle, looking for water.
It was a sun span before Tau was called again. His opponent was a High Harvester in a gambeson. The pitiable bastard bleated for the Goddess’s mercy after taking the first two hits.
Tau’s fourth match was a war that lasted the entire two hundred count. Tau and his opponent were drenched in sweat by the time it was over, and Tau had lost count of the points long ago. He almost wept when the Proven lifted his arm in victory.
Fighting back tears and exhaustion, he tottered out of the fighting circle and collapsed. He knew if he was called for another match, he would lose. He lay and sat, in turns, waiting for and dreading to hear his number, and it wasn’t until the sun was on its return journey to the earth that Tau heard someone beat the bronze gong that announced the end of the first day of testing.
He’d survived. He’d fought four matches and won them, though the first fight had been the most perilous. By all rights, the pockmarked Governor should be in his place.
Tau tried to take off his gambeson but couldn’t raise his arms. He left the sweat-drenched padding on and shuffled away. He had to find something to eat, somewhere to sleep. The next day would be harder. Everyone would be a survivor of day one.
BRAWL
Day two was hotter. Tau hadn’t slept much or eaten at all. His muscles ached, his head pounded from the blow he’d taken on the first day, and he was walking with a limp from a cramp that wouldn’t loosen. The Heroes’ Circle was just as crowded as it had been the day before, the failed competitors replaced with spectators come to see the “real” fighters. Umqondisi from both the Northern and Southern Isikolo had come too, scouting for talent. Tau spotted Jayyed, and thinking back to Jabari’s words, he became determined to impress the man. He hoped the onetime Guardian Council adviser would see him fight.